So, i think i better start at the beginning, where the whole idea of a blog was mentioned, because it was a very interesting and important time, which i think you may be interested to know about.
As the title suggests I, and a good friend of mine, attended a nursing conference at the university of Nottingham, which my brain, for some reason, insists on being the university of Birmingham and many of my friends believe i went there instead, but i did infact go to Nottingham. I didn't see much of the town itself apart from the taxi too and from the train station. This is because Nottingham uni is a campus uni so everything i needed was in one small, very lovely place, completely isolated from the town. In idea i find interesting but also rather lonely. I don't think i mind which sort of uni i go to (campus or town uni) because both has its up sides and down sides. Campus uni's have, like i said before, everything you need in a small place, so its litrally a 5 minute walk from where you live to your lessons, very good for the average lazy student ;) However, nights out in the town could then be difficult because of getting there, the night suddenly become's expencive when you have to pay for a taxi. Town universities are the oppposite, easy nights out, but long walks to lessons, it all depends on the person. Me, im not that bothered, either one sounds good :)
So the conference itself wasn't exactly a conference, it was a series of lecutres about different sections of nursing that all lasted about an hour. Some were really good, and some were extremely boring and i found that it depended intirely on who took the lecture. For example, the branch of nursing i am most interested in is child nursing, and the person who took that was pretty boring and stood at the front and talked the whole time, so i found it boring. However, there was two students who did a lecture on midwifery, a branch of nursing i am not interested in, and i came out wanting to be a midwife it was so good. They moved around, joked about and generally looked like they were having a good time, so i did too.
There were many lectures, and the one i found the most interesting was Auscultation, i.e. how the heart pumps. It was brilliant, and i think that, again, was down to the lecturer, who happened to be the same guy who did the EDGE session. He was amazing, and i kept eye contact with him in complete concentation and slight awe from the whole hour and 15 minutes. When he said the lesson was at an end i thought i had just jumped in the tardis, it really didn't feel that long.
There were many other lectures including Adult nursing, another midwifery one, one about nursing in communities, one about mental health nursing and another about disabilities nursing. Others were focused about finance, how to get into nursing, and generally nursing itself, i.e. what your letting yourself in for.
However, the lectures were only a half of it! I also booked to attect a 'practical session' on the second day, which had to be one of the most interesting experiences of my life. We did many different things, from learning about X-rays, to ECG's. One of my favorates was suturing, i.e. sewing people up. I was absolutly RUBBISH at it. I was so bad that i lost the little hook (that scarily looks like a fishing hook) which you use to penetrate the skin and hook through, therefore sweing the person up, in the fake skin we had. And i mean seriously lost, i don't know how, but we couldn't get it out. So, god help my future patients when they have a laceration.
Another one i found very fun and interesting was taking blood and needles in general. Now this one i was good at, i was the only one on our table that managed to get blood out of the little fake vein thing first time! Everyone else kept going too far, or going in at the wrong angle. Not me!
Also, one of the other main thing the course offered was not only the chance to sit in real lecture theaters, learn from real professers and get the chance to try things that we will hopefully be training for in the future, but i was also a chance to see what general student life was like. For example, we slept in real halls of residence and got our own room, we ate in the actual food halls normal students ate in, and we got to live like real students. And i have to say, i absolutly loved it!
So to sum up, I think i will love being a student, Campus uni's are very different from City uni's, Don't let me anywhere near someone that needs their arm sewing but if you need blood taken or need an injection, i am the person to come to!
Bon Voyage!
P.S. If you get the chance to go to a conference of your subject in the university of Nottingham, Go for it! it was a fantastic experience. Check out workshop's (the people who organise it) website and see if there are any you wish to attend: http://www.workshop-uk.net/
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